1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an automatic telephone answering device, more particularly, to an automatic telephone answering apparatus which has multiple sections in the outgoing message area for recording multiple outgoing messages. According to the user's switch selection, an incoming calling party is greeted with a specific outgoing message which is one of the multiple outgoing messages recorded in the outgoing message area. Corresponding to the effected switch selection, a user can record a plurality of the most frequently used outgoing messages in the multiple sections of the outgoing message area and select the required outgoing message any time by a very easy operation. Compared with conventional telephone answering devices of the type with only one recorded outgoing message, a user of an automatic telephone answering device embodying the present invention doesn't have to spend time recording a new outgoing message which is intended to take the place of an original outgoing message which is considered improper.
2. Brief Description of the Prior Art
As is well known in the art, an automatic telephone answering device is device which automatically engages with a telephone line on receiving an incoming call, sends out an outgoing message to the calling party, and drives a recording unit to record any incoming message received from the calling party. Thereafter, the automatic telephone answering device is set, into a standby mode to wait for the next incoming call. In a conventional automatic telephone answering device, an outgoing message area of a magnetic recording tape is usually used to record an outgoing message which will be played back to a calling party whenever the automatic telephone answering device receives an incoming call. In another conventional device, an outgoing message is played back to all the incoming calling parties, and other supporting messages are played back to a calling party who enters some control codes during or after the playing back period of the main outgoing message.
In these conventional automatic telephone answering devices, if a user wants to change the recorded outgoing message which, for example, is considered unfit by the user, normally the user would proceed to record a new outgoing message which would overwrite the original outgoing message. The procedure of recording a new outgoing message usually takes time to initiate, record and check.
However, because the original outgoing message must be changed whenever a user feels that the content of the original outgoing message can not explain the situation at that moment, the user may feel it is inconvenient to change the outgoing message by repeatedly recording a new message if the situation changes very frequently. But the user doesn't have any choice except to take time to record a new outgoing message again and again, because all the conventional automatic telephone answering devices allow only one outgoing message to be recorded in the outgoing message area and to be played back to all the calling parties. Examples of the conventional automatic telephone answering devices can be seen from U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,309,571 and 4,421,954.